New cooking school brings French flair to Cambridge

Wednesday

There’s a new cooking school in Cambridge and you don’t have to be an aspiring culinary buff to reap the benefits.

There’s a new cooking school in Cambridge and you don’t have to be an aspiring culinary buff to reap the benefits.

Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts Boston is opening a full-service, student-staffed fine dining restaurant at their East Cambridge school next year.

Technique is expected to open in the spring of 2009 on the ground floor of the school at 215 First St. The 130-seat restaurant, which is being billed as a dining option for those looking to score an inexpensive gourmet lunch or dinner, has an open kitchen where diners can watch the students prepare the food in the wood-burning pizza oven.

Food lovers will have to wait about a year for the restaurant to open. Working in the restaurant is the last class students take at the school and it will take about a year for the inaugural class to get to that point in their studies, according to Steve King, president of the school.

The restaurant is named in honor of the school’s philosophy.

“We don’t teach recipes here. We teach technique,” said King, who emphasizes that students learn about 450 techniques before graduating from the school’s 12-month intensive program and completing a three-month off-site internship.

The restaurant’s a la carte menu won’t be so sophisticated that it will turn off the average diner, according to King.

“We will have hamburgers and turkey clubs, but it will be the best you can get,” said King.

King, a native of Dartmouth, spent 16 years with the Marriott International as director of food and beverage and worked in hotel locations in Austin, Washington, D.C., Miami, Atlanta, Orlando and Memphis. King said he also helped open the Cambridge Marriott on a temporary assignment.

In his new capacity as head of the school, King overseas a 70,000-square-foot campus complete with eight massive, state-of-the-art kitchens, a library, computer lab and a classroom where students take courses in nutrition, food budgeting planning and a speech class (King explains that aspiring chefs need to learn to project their voices in case they end up working in large kitchens, in charge of 150 staff members).

Classes at Le Cordon Bleu Boston started April 7 and King said the school hopes to be at full capacity — 1,300 students — within about a year. The culinary school is the 14th Le Cordon Bleu school to open in North America.

“It’s probably long overdue, to be honest with you,” said King about the school’s newest location. “This is very much a food town.”

For more information or to enroll, visit www.BostonCulinaryArts.com.

Cambridge Chronicle

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